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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28489857">dust ribbons</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq'>deniigiq</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>finding the lost and losing the found [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Compromise, Din and Luke annoy the everloving shit out of each other in their own ways, Din knows shit about fuck, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Teacher-Student Relationship, and it's all he really needs, bad attitudes all over</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:35:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,876</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28489857</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“So you’re <em>not</em> stealing my ship?” Mando said.<br/>“What do I want with your ship?” Luke demanded.<br/>“I don’t know. I don’t usually ask,” Mando said. </p><p>(Luke tries to help his student stay focused on his studies by helping his student's father. It's harder than it looks.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Din Djarin &amp; Grogu | Baby Yoda, Din Djarin &amp; Luke Skywalker, Grogu | Baby Yoda &amp; Luke Skywalker, this could be Din/Luke if you're into that but you can also read it as just gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>finding the lost and losing the found [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090520</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>98</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1514</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>dust ribbons</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I don't fucking go here. I know nothing about Star Wars, I have tried and failed to watch them many a time. Don't ask me about anything. I only care about the Mandalorian and that is all.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Grogu was a cute little mindfuck.</p><p>Luke didn’t know what else to call him. He had a hard time not staring, actually, what with the no-feet, baby-Yoda thing.</p><p>He swore the kid had feet. He had to have feet, right? Luke had held him. He’d felt something like feet, but since that moment, he’d seen not a single toe. It had been hours now.</p><p>Surely Grogu had toes.</p><p>Did Yoda have toes?</p><p>Yoda had toes.</p><p><em>But did he actually have toes</em>?? Or had he just implanted the thought in Luke’s and everyone else’s brains so that—</p><p>Oh. Grogu was cooing at him.</p><p>Luke flickered a smile his way and got a strangely flat expression in return. He tried another smile, a little more upbeat this time.</p><p>Grogu’s ears dropped and he pressed himself deeper into the little den Luke had made for him in his seat.</p><p>This wasn’t working. Luke was dying. He had to know or else he’d be distracted for the next gazillion years.</p><p>“Listen, do you have—” he started.</p><p>Grogu’s eyes narrowed to slits.</p><p>A threat. Aha. Message received.</p><p>“—have. Have. Have a liking for the Mandalorian?” Luke stammered.</p><p>Silence.</p><p>Baby Yoda glared at him. Luke tore his eyes away and stared out the cockpit window.</p><p>They were off to a terrific start, him and Baby Yo—<em>Grogu</em>. A terrific one.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He assumed that Baby Yo—Grogu would have a bit of a time settling in with the other students. He was just so…small. And baby-like. Very baby-like. How old was he now?</p><p>Did it matter, actually? When the main complaint the other kids had was simply ‘Master, he <em>bites</em>’?</p><p>No. It didn’t.</p><p>“Listen,” Luke negotiated, all crunched up as low as he could get to face Grogu. “I understand you’re frustrated. It’s tough not being able to tell them to stop poking you. But you can’t bite people.”</p><p>He got an innocent gaze in return and an absolutely empty head.</p><p>This was not optimal. Or helpful. Perhaps—No. No, no. That would be traumatic for everyone involved.</p><p>“Next time you want to bite someone, why don’t you shake their hand instead?” Luke tried. “Friends, friends, everywhere. We’re all friends, here.”</p><p>Grogu’s eyes narrowed again. He didn’t like this song. Or any of the songs. Luke felt like he was standing on a post with his arms pinwheeling.</p><p>“Do you know what you need?” Luke said. “A clean slate. Let’s start over. My name’s Luke Sky—”</p><p>The kid whimpered.</p><p>BAD. Bad, bad. The worst. Nope. There would be no crying on Luke’s watch.</p><p>“--walker and I think your dad’s neat,” he hurriedly finished.</p><p>There was immediate silence.</p><p>Ah.</p><p>“Do you miss him?” Luke asked. “Your father?”</p><p>Grogu’s ears shot up and he nearly fell over himself toddling over to grab at Luke’s fingers. He made little agitated grunts and whines as he got ahold of them. Luke felt his eyes widening, then caught himself.</p><p>“Okay,” he said slowly. “Okay, I can work with that.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Grogu was the babiest yoda—cat-swamp-person, whatever he was—that Luke had ever encountered and some slightly frantic (although definitely dignified) research brought him to the understanding that this was apparently very normal for cat-swamp-frog people of his apparent age.</p><p>“You imprinted on him, didn’t you?” he asked Grogu over a dinner that the kid was suspicious of.</p><p>He got no answer. There was gruel that needed Grogu’s entire attention and hatred. Luke went back to the books.</p><p>It wasn’t quite clear if Grogu had imprinted on the Mandalorian or if the journey that they’d taken together had bonded them closely instead. Grogu’s idea of Mando seemed to be one of admiration, fondness, and loyalty. He imagined Mando as a knight in shining armor—which was more than fair given that he was, technically, a rogue knight in shining armor. He even had a spear now. How much more knight-like could you get?</p><p>The tricky thing here was, however, that Mando was one (1) single Mandalorian who did not want to murder, slay, stab, maim, or otherwise tear a Jedi to shreds on sight. Perhaps he was one of a small and growing group, but he was still a Mandalorian.</p><p>And Grogu had picked up some of his habits.</p><p>The swearing, for example. The affinity for shiny things. The tendency to seek out buckets to hide in.</p><p>It was all proving to be hard to shake. And even though Luke considered himself about as liberal as Jedis went, it seemed to him that the more that Grogu buckled down and dedicated himself to the Way, the harder it was for him to achieve forward momentum in his other training.</p><p>Surely there was a way to meet in the middle. And maybe a little reminder of why all this was happening to begin with would be a good place to start.</p><p>To that end, Luke put together a plan.</p><p>Step 1) Find the Mandalorian. Inquire about beliefs and practices. Impress upon him the need for compromise and understanding with his green swamp son.</p><p>Step 2) Make a visiting schedule with the Mandalorian. Use visits as incentive for tiny green cat people to <em>stop hissing at people</em>.</p><p>Step 3) Gain the Mandalorian’s favor so as to show goodwill to Grogu and help him understand that no one was trying to drive a wedge between the two of them.</p><p>Step 4) Successfully get Grogu’s compliance.</p><p>What could possibly go wrong?</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Leia laughed in his face, which was rude, but typical. She howled at the idea that Luke, of all people, could find a depressed Mandalorian and get him to talk freely about his breakfast, much less his culture. She told him that, with his luck, Grogu’s Mando was the leader of a sect of Mandalorians who lived underground until the spring, whereupon they rose during the night to plant flowers and commune with their moon.</p><p>Luke told her to just watch him work.</p><p>Then, three weeks later, he came crawling home to the sound of those very same howls.</p><p>Leia had the time of her life reveling in his misery.</p><p>Mando, it was said (by other Mandalorians who shall not be named or spoken of), was a follower of a particularly conservative sect of Mandalorians who lived only partially underground for substantial periods of the year--as if that last part was any consolation at all.</p><p>And while That Mandalorian Who Would Not Be Mentioned said that Grogu’s guy had taken off his helmet in Luke’s presence at their first meeting, the chances of him ever seeing, much less finding the man again were next to nil.</p><p>The bastard had the nerve to bid Luke good luck.</p><p>Leia told Luke that he needed to see his own face because he was so offended, it was bringing tears to her eyes. Luke told her that this whole side-quest was now an affront to his honor. He needed someone to train the kids in his absence.</p><p>He stared.</p><p>Leia said she was busy.</p><p>He carried on staring.</p><p>Leia told him to ask someone else.</p><p>He waited.</p><p>She told him to get out of her sight before she did something they both regretted. He left. But before the doors shut behind him, he heard her call ‘good luck.’</p><p>Hmph.</p><p>Ye of little faith, all of you.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It took two godforsaken months, but Luke did it. He found his guy. Knee-deep in some kind of acid in the middle of an abandoned planet, yes, but you know what? Beggars can’t be choosers. Luke had found his mark. And his mark—</p><p>Well.</p><p>His mark <em>perhaps</em> didn’t remember who Luke was. Like, not even a little.</p><p>Grogu’s father stared at him through that helmet of his with gun in one hand and spear in the other, and Luke would swear on anyone’s grave that he said, ‘Are you a cop?’</p><p>Luke had to double check that he was wearing his cloak. He was 99.9% sure that it was the same cloak he’d met this guy in. But just in case it wasn’t, he took a gander.</p><p>Then he checked his glove and his boots and looked up to find himself completely forgotten. Mando was slogging through steaming acid towards the middle of the pool. He appeared to be taking aim with the spear.</p><p>He jabbed it hard into the center of…something…and whatever it was hissed and shrieked. The acid started to seep down, down, under the sand until Mando was left standing on dry land above a metal box. He lifted the spear out of the center of it, then toed at it to make sure it—whatever it was—was dead. He knocked it onto its side and then decided that that was good enough. He collected it and tromped right past Luke, telling him that he was collecting bounties and that wasn’t against the law.</p><p>Luke found himself in the familiar if undignified position of chasing after the guy.</p><p>“Wait,” he said. “Hold on. We’ve met.”</p><p>“Nice try, pal,” Mando said, tossing his metal box over his shoulder.</p><p>“No, I’m Luke,” Luke said. “Luke Sky—”</p><p>He froze at sight of the tip of the spear between his eyes.</p><p>“—walker,” he finished lamely.</p><p>“I’m busy,” Mando said. “I don’t have time for scavengers. Go bother someone else.”</p><p>Scavengers?</p><p>No, no. Jedi. <em>Je-di</em>.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“We’ve <em>met</em>,” Luke emphasized again. “I’m Grogu’s Master.”</p><p>The helmet was utterly unreadable.</p><p>The spear surged forward and sent Luke scrambling back so that he lost his balance and landed ass-first in the sand. He had half a mind to snatch the thing and throw it a thousand miles from here, but caught himself.</p><p>“How do you know his name?” Mando demanded.</p><p>“I’m. His. <em>Teacher</em>,” Luke sounded out. “You gave him to me.”</p><p>There was a long pause.</p><p>“You’re a jedi?” Mando asked.</p><p>HHHH.</p><p>No. No, at this point, Luke was what most people would call ‘fed up.’ That’s what he was.</p><p>“Wait,” Mando said. “You’re the one with the green light sword.”</p><p>Light-sw—</p><p>Light-swor—</p><p>This guy couldn’t be real.</p><p>“Lightsaber,” Luke corrected, standing up and dusting himself off. “And yes. That’s me. Luke Sky—”</p><p>The spear came flying violently back into his face.</p><p>“What have you done to him?” Mando asked coldly.</p><p>Luke stared.</p><p>“Nothing?” he said. “Well, no. That’s not right. I’ve been trying to teach him. And mostly succeeding, believe it or not, except for that part where he keeps screeching at other students and hiding under buckets.”</p><p>There was a long pause. The spear lowered. The helmet somehow managed to look guilty.</p><p>“There was, uh. Not much to do to entertain him. On long flights, I mean,” Mando said.</p><p>It took Luke a moment to process that.</p><p>“You put him. Under a bucket?” he said.</p><p>“What? No, no. He put himself—it’s a game. Hide and seek,” Mando said. “We used to play it—it’s good for learning how to take cover.”</p><p>Luke had no words. Mando didn’t either.</p><p>The silence between them felt like desert wind.</p><p>“So he’s, uh, not adjusting?” Mando finally asked awkwardly.</p><p>“No,” Luke said.</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>“I mean, badly,” Luke corrected.</p><p>Mando somehow seemed distraught.</p><p>“Is there something I can do to help?” he asked in his stilted way.</p><p>“I’m so glad you asked,” Luke said.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Luke didn’t know how to say this, what with the whole tearful reunion going on in his midst, but Mando was kind of…not stupid. He wasn’t stupid.</p><p>Perhaps ‘unaware?’ Forgetful? Lacking context in say, every possible direction?</p><p>Naïve. That was the one.</p><p>Mando was <em>horrendously</em> naïve.</p><p>It was actually sort of funny? Was it awful of Luke to think such a thing of a supposed great warrior?</p><p>The answer was ‘yes,’ given the fury that Grogu was hurling in his direction at the moment.</p><p>Grogu was adamant that his father was not only very knowledgeable about many, many things, but also brave and handsome and cool. All important dad-qualities, no doubt.</p><p>Luke bit his lip and then his tongue.</p><p>He dipped his face and promised Grogu he would not insult his old man any more. He’d leave them to have their feelings.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Mando held Grogu later while Luke negotiated the terms of what he was hoping would be a useful arrangement. Mando’s helmet gave nothing away. He only nodded and occasionally stared down at Grogu in a manner that Luke decided was his version of a scolding.</p><p>Grogu narrowed his eyes to slits and grumbled every time the helmet tilted down at him in that particular way.</p><p>At the end of their discussion, Mando dismissed himself and took his shuddering armor and his grumpy kid a ways away, towards what he was calling his ‘new ship.’</p><p>It was not new. Luke could only presume that it was new specifically for him given the rust and space grime that was colonizing each rivet in the thing’s walls. Regardless, he could see Mando underneath it, holding Grogu up to eye level with a warning finger in his face. Grogu grabbed for it and hugged it to his little chest and Mando’s irritation appeared to droop into a sigh.</p><p>Luke raised an eyebrow.</p><p>So it wasn’t only him who found Grogu to be stubborn, then. Good to know. That was more comforting than it had any right to be.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Mando was a strict father if nothing else. He informed Luke a few hours later that he’d had a word with his ‘womp rat’ and they’d come to an understanding about paying attention in class and terrorizing other children. Mando didn’t understand where this latter behavior had come from. He told Luke that Grogu, on every planet that Mando had taken him to, had befriended other children very quickly. Perhaps it was just that they were all jedis here that made him feel insecure.</p><p>But not to worry, Mando said, Grogu wouldn’t be hiding in buckets anymore. They’d had a talk about that, too. Obviously, that was too predictable for the kid now. Mando had told him to do a better job. To get more creative—you know, because the galaxy isn’t full of buckets. But bedsheets and cupboards? The place was brimming with them.</p><p>Anyways, if he—Luke Jedi—needed anything, he was welcome to get in contact. As was Grogu. Mando even had a contact number. He gave this to Luke on a scrap of paper. It was hand-written.</p><p>Luke found his tongue dry and his words vanquished.</p><p>His brain kicked him until he managed to rasp out a ‘thank you.’ In return, he got a curt nod. Then he was abandoned for the new-old ship. A piece fell off it. Mando picked it up and climbed inside with it, then fired ‘er up and took off anyways.</p><p>A tin-man in his new-old tin can.</p><p>Luke needed a drink.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Grogu’s behavior improved.</p><p>Somehow. Against all odds.</p><p>Luke felt empty as he watched this.</p><p>No matter how many times he ran through what had happened two weeks ago, none of it made any more sense. The only thing that he could get ahold of was Mando’s fondly volunteered offer of support and his crumbling ship.</p><p>It was the crumbling ship that bothered Luke most. He couldn’t put his finger on why.</p><p>“Grogu,” he finally asked one day while the kids were out playing games that Grogu was too small to join in on. “Is your father…poor?”</p><p>Grogu made a curious sound.</p><p>“Does he have money?” Luke asked.</p><p>Grogu thought so. He understood that his father was a hunter. He hunted Mudhorns and dragons and Jedis and bad people with black cloaks.</p><p>Luke pressed a balled fist to his nose and tried, desperately, to understand.</p><p>“He’s so cool,” he ended up saying.</p><p>Grogu practically shrieked in agreement.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Mandalorian was going to get himself killed.</p><p>Repeat, the Mandalorian was going to get himself killed. And Luke would be left here with his wailing kid, who’d started to develop a whole new set of teeth and claws.</p><p>Luke couldn’t afford for the Mandalorian to get himself killed in that rust bucket—the one on his head <em>or</em> the one he was piloting.</p><p>The child was inconsolable. No medicine could make his gums less inflamed or his fingers less tender. He kept his hands curled up and his face hidden and he would have nothing to do with anyone, much less any teaching that might have otherwise occurred. He cried himself to sleep and then cried himself awake, and Luke didn’t know what to do anymore.</p><p>The answer was ‘call the Mandalorian.’</p><p>The subsequent answer wasn’t supposed to be ‘worry yourself sick over the Mandalorian,’ even if the guy smelled like old rust and iron and sweat when he staggered out of his new-old ship and took Grogu into his arms.</p><p>He then vanished for a good three hours, which led to people looking to Luke nervously, worrying that Mando had taken Grogu and run.</p><p>Luke had no choice. He had to board the Rust Bucket.</p><p>Mando was curled up in the back of it with Grogu tucked against his neck. He was breathing, but it didn’t sound right. He didn’t wake up when Luke called him or Grogu. He didn’t wake up when Luke extracted Grogu and was besieged with crying.</p><p>He didn’t even wake up when Luke poked him. So Luke did what any man could do in his situation.</p><p>He declared him dying.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The dying declaration turned out to be a mistake and a costly one, given that Luke was now missing a student and had potentially reignited a historical intergalactic feud.</p><p>He kept shivering and checking over his shoulders. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Mando was watching him with a rifle from a distance.</p><p>Grogu still hadn’t turned up.</p><p>Luke didn’t <em>understand</em>. He’d thought Mando was dying. He was breathing like he was dying. What else was he to do but to move the man indoors for medical attention?</p><p>It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen Mando’s face before.</p><p>It was a nice enough face. It was way too soft and gentle-looking for a bounty hunter, really. Mando appeared just as naïve as he spoke, and Luke thought that was kind of sweet.</p><p>Less sweet when those eyes snapped open and the choking started up. But still, sweet enough.</p><p>Perhaps The Disgraced Unnamed Mandalorian was right, maybe Luke was a little out of his depth here. He didn’t know what ‘ultra-conservative sect’ meant for Mandalorians, but he now got the feeling that Mando was of the ‘helmet off not even upon pain of death’ variety.</p><p>He felt bad. He needed to make it up. Or at least apologize. But how to do that in the crosshairs of a blaster was challenging.</p><p>He needed Grogu. Grogu was not forthcoming.</p><p>Unless.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It was a <em>little</em> below the belt to lure the kiddo back to the shelter with frog spawn. Maybe a little. But Luke decided that he wasn’t going to feel bad about it. He had higher order business to take care of, namely preventing an old feud from escalating.</p><p>He explained to Grogu that he wanted to apologize for violating his father’s code of honor. Grogu stared up at him and then shook his head sadly.</p><p>It appeared that Mando was furious. And yes, indeed, planning Luke’s imminent demise.</p><p>That was unfortunate.</p><p>Grogu cooed and got up to his little feet and toddled off, leaving Luke feeling sorry for himself in the main room. Soon enough, he returned making sounds of effort. Luke lifted his face and looked around for him.</p><p>He stood up and went into the hall and found Grogu leaning on a bucket.</p><p>Not just any bucket, though. <em>The</em> bucket.</p><p>No wonder Mando hadn’t just scrambled off-planet.</p><p>He was scheming how to get past Luke and all the kids to get his helmet back. He must have forgotten it in his haste to eliminate Luke as a threat and to get out of sight.</p><p>Luke picked up the helmet.</p><p>“You’re so wise, little one,” he told Grogu. “Let’s go make a fresh start.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>No fresh start was forthcoming. Mando refused to come out of his ship. His voice was much clearer now than in the helmet as he told Luke that if he left so much as a fingerprint on that visor, his days were numbered.</p><p>Luke decided to wait the hostility out. He kept the helmet outstretched before him. There was no sense in setting it in the dust. It would take weeks to get all the sand out of it.</p><p>Grogu disagreed and tugged at his knee. He made a grabby hand for the helmet, but it was too big for him to hold.</p><p>“It’s okay,” Luke told his student. “He’ll see reason and come out to get it.”</p><p>Mando must have heard that and decided to take the very idea as a challenge.</p><p>Luke found himself still standing out in-between the ship and the school even past sundown. Grogu had gotten bored of him and had meandered up the ship’s ramp, apparently to appeal to his dad’s better nature.</p><p>He wasn’t have much luck either, Luke figured.</p><p>He didn’t <em>want</em> to leave the helmet in the dust. It felt like sacrilege. But there wasn’t much choice anymore. Luke couldn’t just wait around for some hard-headed Mandalorian to come in from the cold. He sighed and took off his cloak. He wrapped it around the helmet and left it where he stood. Grogu surely would spend the night with his father. He would be safe. Luke had other students and matters to attend to.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In the morning, both the helmet and cloak were gone. Grogu was asleep in his bed. The Rust Bucket had vanished.</p><p>Luke stared up at the sky and chewed his tongue.</p><p>“I <em>liked</em> that one,” he told it in irritation.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Six months of this. Six months of bi-monthly visits from a cloak-thief. Luke was almost getting used to the Captain Naïve Bucket of the Bucket of Rust.</p><p>He didn’t like Luke anymore, Luke was positive of that, but he thought that they had come to a more or less peaceful arrangement.</p><p>He did not ever expect to end up in a position where Mando was defending his school. And further, he did not expect to end up pressed this close against the man himself as everyone took cover behind whatever they could find.</p><p>Luke wanted to end this nonsense now. The rock creature that huffed and puffed and screeched across the training area surely wouldn’t be a match for what he could bring it, but Mando kept jostling him every time he tried to get up and use the Force. It was like he <em>knew</em>, the bastard.</p><p>Luke had just about decided to bury him under three feet of sand when the guy took aim and fired a single shot into the creature’s belly. It dropped immediately. Mando hushed all the kids and hunkered down over them as he took aim again.</p><p>One more shot. The rock creature didn’t even cry.</p><p>“What was that?” Luke whispered.</p><p>“Their hearts are low on the body,” Mando told him, reloading. “When they scream, they break into twenty-four pieces and they all grow into big ones.”</p><p>Oh.</p><p>Okay. Nevermind then. Perhaps it was better to leave it to the expert. For now.</p><p>“How many are there left?” Luke asked.</p><p>Mando’s helmet turned his way.</p><p>“Watch the kids,” he said. Then slipped out from their cover and vanished from sight.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“What does your dad like to eat?” Luke asked Grogu firmly a few hours after the school was declared rock creature-less.</p><p>Grogu ignored him. There were ribbons to play with and all the especially little ones were taken with their rainbow of color.</p><p>“Grogu,” Luke said, snapping his fingers, “Hello? I’m talking to you.”</p><p>Grogu huffed at him and offered him only a half memory of Mando dozing off with what appeared to be some kind of tea in his hand. </p><p>It was unhelpful. The child didn’t care. He went back to the ribbons with the others.</p><p>Luke huffed.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Stew. Everyone liked stew.</p><p>Here, Mando, Mando. Come get the nice stew. No one will take your helmet. It’s a thank you. That’s all. A <em>thank you</em>.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The vessel was still out in the sand in the morning. It still had stew in it. The ship was gone again. Luke felt his eye twitch.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Leia told him that he was getting obsessive about this Mandalorian. She said it sounded unhealthy. <em>He</em> sounded unhealthy.</p><p>“The man probably lives off rations and booze,” she said dismissively. “It’s no wonder he thinks your cooking is poison.”</p><p>Luke decided that this was a compliment towards his cooking. Leia said that it wasn’t. Luke ignored her.</p><p>“I can’t stop thinking about him,” he lamented. “He’s here, he’s gone. He’s helping, he’s angry. He—”</p><p>“Only cares about his child, Luke,” Leia reminded him. “What, are you jealous?”</p><p>Was he <em>what?</em></p><p>“It’s hard not being the center of attention, isn’t it?” Leia crooned.</p><p>Well, Luke wouldn’t know, would he, dear sister?</p><p>Leia shut off communications.</p><p>Fine. Luke with deal with it on his own. He was devoting too much energy to the Mandalorian. He would simply stop doing that. How hard could it be?</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Mandalorian missed two visits to his child.</p><p>Grogu was upset. Luke told him that he was sure that Mando was off somewhere, caught up in something fantastically dangerous and heroic. He’d visit when he was done with that.</p><p>The third arranged visit went by with no word from Mando, and Grogu’s progress with the Force halted like traffic on Tatooine on New Year’s Eve. He started to act out again. Was stubborn. Refused meals.</p><p>Luke sighed and decided that the kid needed some space and time to get over the sense of betrayal.</p><p>When the fourth visit came and passed like the ones before it, Luke started to actually get a little worried.</p><p>His student was distraught. Other people in and around the school had started to talk. There was word of a Mandalorian wreaking havoc on a few nearby planets. People thought that this was perhaps Grogu’s father. The man seemed to be in some kind of tailspin, but Luke knew better.</p><p>The bases attacked on those other planets had a logic to them that only someone by the unholy name of Boba Fett could really explain.</p><p>Wrong Mando.</p><p>Where was Grogu’s father?</p><p>This was getting annoying.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The child was listless. He was regressing.</p><p>What had been annoying was now a problem, and one that Luke couldn’t ignore any longer.</p><p>“I’m going to go find him,” he promised Grogu. “And when I bring him back here, you guys can have a big hug before I stuff him into a privy and leave him there all night for being a pain in the neck, yeah?”</p><p>This at least got a giggle out of the kid—the first that Luke had heard from him in a while.</p><p>He strode off to get a cloak. He’d had a new one made. It was green. It wasn’t half as good at the black one, but it would do for now.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It took <em>ages</em> to find the ingrate. But when Luke did find him, it was…unfortunate.</p><p>The marshal who he’d recruited to help him got emotional at the sight of her friend behind bars. She was concerned that he was drugged, probably because he <em>was</em> drugged. The warden of this particular holding ship explained that he had to stay that way because anytime he woke up, he started frothing at the mouth and fighting everyone in sight.</p><p>Luke held his own forehead in his palm.</p><p>This guy had gotten snapped up by these people for flying the Rust Bucket without papers.</p><p>An idiot. He was an idiot. He hadn’t even thought to forge documents. And now they were going to have to break him out of here without his own help given that he was out like a light.</p><p>How were they supposed to do that in this well-lit, well-staffed ship, now, Mando? How? Luke was all ears.</p><p>The marshal next to him turned his way with serious eyes.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Mando had friends. That, Luke hadn’t counted on. He hadn’t counted, either, on the loyalty of those (many) friends to their pal.</p><p>“Are you all aware of his whole, uh, condition?” he asked the marshal as the sniper and He Who Remained Unseen, Unnamed, and Unheard examined the holding ship’s blueprints.</p><p>“What do you mean, his ‘condition?’” the marshal asked.</p><p>Luke needed to say this delicately.</p><p>“The—” he started.</p><p>“Oh. Yeah,” the marshal said before he could even finish. “The man doesn’t take more than he needs from anyone. A real subsistence kind of guy. He doesn’t think farther ahead than he needs to with that goal in mind.”</p><p>Ah.</p><p>It all made sense now.  </p><p>Just one thing.</p><p>“Do you know, by chance, if he has a black cloak?” Luke asked.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>A nightmare turned into a night terror turned into another slight against Luke Skywalker in the eyes of this galaxy.</p><p>Whatever. They could eat shit. Luke had what he came for and, oh, how he had missed it.</p><p>“I’ll never leave you again,” he told his cloak.</p><p>He ignored the disdain of the sniper, the False Mandalorian, and the marshal. Every man needed a purpose and Luke’s was handling disputes in <em>style</em>.</p><p>“I can’t believe he left the baby with you,” the sniper said.</p><p>“Copy that,” the marshal said.</p><p>Naysayers, the lot of them.</p><p>“Excuse you,” Luke said. “In case you weren’t aware, I am Luke Sky—”</p><p>“He’s waking up,” Unheard and Unnamed interrupted.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Mando was sorry. He expressed that by staggering around drunkenly and slamming his helmet into any and all low-hanging objects, then apologizing to them.</p><p>His ship was a piece of shit. The fact that it held together at all was a miracle. Luke nearly took himself out from the turbulence alone.</p><p>He’d had enough. This thing needed repairs or the ire of a man named Han applied to it. He grabbed a fistful of Mando’s half-cape and hauled him back to the cockpit.</p><p>“Okay,” he said, shoving the guy into the passenger’s side. “I know this is radical, but you and me, friend, are going to work together for the next few hours.”</p><p>The helmet listed to the side. Luke snapped fingers at it and it jerked upright.</p><p>“What’d you say?” Mando slurred.</p><p>“I said we’re going to work together,” Luke said. “Tell me how to fly this thing.”</p><p>There was a long pause.</p><p>“You’re stealing my ship?” Mando translated.</p><p>Luke contemplated bashing his head against the control panel.</p><p>“No,” he said with immense patience. “I couldn’t even if I tried. We’re being towed right now, but only so far. After that, you’re coming with me back to the school and we’re having a professional put this thing to order.”</p><p>The helmet tipped slightly to the side again.</p><p>Luke waited.</p><p>“So you’re <em>not</em> stealing my ship?” Mando said.</p><p>“What do I want with your ship?” Luke demanded.</p><p>“I don’t know. I don’t usually ask,” Mando said.</p><p>Luke’s fingers curled.</p><p>“I need you to know that I’ve fought sith lords less aggravating than you,” he said.</p><p>Mando seemed to be blinking at him. Then he brought a hand up and gripped his helmet. Luke couldn’t hold back the groan this time.</p><p>“I’m not stealing <em>anything</em> from you,” he said. “Not the ship. Not the helmet. The only thief here is <em>you</em>.”</p><p>“Excuse me?” Mando said.</p><p>“You took my cloak,” Luke said. “I haven’t forgiven you.”</p><p>“The wrapping?”</p><p>“<em>Cloak</em>.”</p><p>“Blanket?”</p><p>Luke’s blood pressure was high enough to enter orbit on some moons.</p><p>“You know what?” he said. “I bet you’re tired. Why don’t you get some sleep?”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Rust Bucket was so low-tech it was difficult to pilot. That seemed on brand for a guy who fought with a spear, though, so Luke decided to let it go. At least Mando’s friends had gotten them close enough to the planet that Luke didn’t have to try to figure out the mapping system on this thing.</p><p>It would probably be as helpful as Mando, anyways, which was to say: absolutely useless.</p><p>The man had clang-bang-clattered his way back out of the cockpit and presumably into some kind of sleeping quarters, given that Luke hadn’t heard a peep from him for the last forty-five minutes.</p><p>It was almost like he’d died.</p><p>Wait.</p><p>No, there was no point. Luke set his sights on the cockpit window. He kept his hands on the old controls. Mando was too stubborn to die in his own ship. If he was going to croak, it would surely be in the jaws of some wild and ancient creature.</p><p>Something fell and rattled metallically somewhere behind him.</p><p>He ignored it.</p><p>He was ignoring it.</p><p>Mando was fine. Just sleeping off the drugs. He was—</p><p>For fuck’s sake, where was autopilot on this thing?</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Mando was knocked out on the metal ground outside what Luke presumed was his sleeping chamber. Luke set his hands on his hips and stared down at him. The helmet rattled against the floor as the ship shook.</p><p>“You better not be heavy,” Luke warned as he stooped down.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>HNG.</p><p>Okay. That giant, floppy block of lead was where he couldn’t give himself a concussion. Luke was back in the cockpit.</p><p>He had to land this thing, now. He knew how to land things.</p><p>Right?</p><p>Right.</p><p>Right?</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>All was well. Everything was fine. Luke had located a mechanic!</p><p>Grogu stared at him in shock and awe as he strode out of the Rust Bucket to the cheers of the students and staff. He took a bow and swept his black cloak dramatically out of the way for the second one.</p><p>It took a good two hours before Mando came staggering out into the daylight, dazed, confused, and then immediately offended by the people who were so kindly trying to breathe life into the eons-old flying craft Luke had more or less ploughed into the sand.</p><p>Everyone was alive. That was what counted.</p><p>Mando had other thoughts, namely about the missing pieces of his beloved ship and then about all of the registration information Luke had oh-so-kindly programmed into the ship’s system while <em>someone</em> was getting up-close and personal with the floor.</p><p>He decided that this was jedi sabotage and Luke let him think that. Why not? If suspicion and irritation kept him alive for Grogu, then what was the harm?</p><p>“I don’t like you,” Mando snapped in his face. “Stay away from my ship, Skywalker.”</p><p>Luke totally forgot what he was going to say next.</p><p>“You know my name?” he asked instead.</p><p>Mando huffed at him and swept up Grogu on his way back to the ship.</p><p>“Wait,” Luke said. “How do you know my name?”</p><p>“You told me it a thousand times,” Mando called back without turning around.</p><p>Oh. So he’d been listening after all?</p><p>Mando jerked back just as he hit the ship’s boarding ramp.</p><p>“Yes,” he said stiffly.</p><p>Then he vanished inside.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Oh no.</p><p>Oh, Leia. Come in, Leia.</p><p>The Mandalorian had given Luke <em>attention</em>, Leia. This was it. He was done for. They were eternally bonded now.</p><p>Leia told him that she was busy and not to form crushes on people who aggravated him. She regretted it herself, but it was too late to turn back now.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Grogu appeared to have noticed these…feelings.</p><p>He made strange noises at Luke. Luke simply pretended that he wasn’t making them.</p><p>“Your father is rude and staying a few more days while our guys repair his ship,” he told the child stiffly. “And when that’s done, I think he’s going to leave us here for six hundred years out of spite.”</p><p>Grogu whined.</p><p>“Well, then you’ll just have to tell him why he can’t do that, then,” Luke said.</p><p>Grogu pawed at his trousers.</p><p>“What he does away from here is neither my nor your business, child,” Luke said. “My duty to you is to teach you more about the Force. I’m afraid your father is incapable of learning anything whatsoever.”</p><p>The kid’s ears flipped back and down and he made a little growling sound before tearing himself away from Luke’s trousers and toddling furiously back towards the main room.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Grogu refused to take part in his studies. He hid—alarmingly well. Not under a single bucket. It took Luke ages to find him, and when he did, he was met with squeaks and shrieks.</p><p>There wasn’t a cuddle or hug to be found in the whole schoolhouse with this kid.</p><p>Luke told him that if he finished his lessons then he could go out and spend time with his father, but Grogu was not in a compliant sort of mood.</p><p>He wanted Luke to apologize for bad-mouthing Mando, and he wanted Luke to do it to the man’s face. Helmet. Whatever.</p><p>This was, in Luke’s very correct opinion, a misunderstanding of the situation at hand. Mutual disdain did not mean that he and Mando were hostile to each other. On the contrary, actually. Mutual disdain was doing a lot here to humanize the both of them to each other.</p><p>It was healthy, really, child. This was how people became friends.</p><p>Grogu’s ears perked up at that last word and Luke found himself realizing that he couldn’t take it back now.</p><p>Man.</p><p>Well, alright. So it will be.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Mando,” Luke greeted the man’s back out in the sand.</p><p>Mando didn’t turn around.</p><p>“Your men took part of my shields,” he scowled.</p><p>“Yes, to weld them back together,” Luke said. “Can we talk?”</p><p>“Why not weld them while they’re in place?” Mando asked.</p><p>“Because the part that needs welding is the bit that keeps them from falling off,” Luke said. He caught his eyes narrowing and cleared his throat.</p><p>“Your son wishes for us to have better relations. The tension between us distracts him from his studies,” he said.</p><p>Mando’s armor leaned slightly to the side as though he was weighing the idea in his head.</p><p>“We can’t always get what we want,” he said. “It’ll do him good to learn that.”</p><p>Stubborn. Incorrigible. Impolite.</p><p>“Do you or do you not want him to learn how to use the Force?” Luke asked sharply.</p><p>Mando finally straightened his spine and turned back enough that Luke could see the front of his helmet.</p><p>“It’s not about what I want,” Mando said. “It’s about what he wants.”</p><p>It felt, for a moment, like Luke forgot how to breathe.</p><p>“Well,” he said. “What <em>he</em> wants is for us to have improved relations. So, why don’t we come to an agreement? In exchange for you exercising greater caution so as to continue to attend monthly visits, I offer you my support.”</p><p>He waited. The wind blew and rustled the Mandalorian’s half-cape.</p><p>“Support in what?” Mando asked tersely.</p><p>“In combat,” Luke said. “If you should require it.”</p><p>Light reflected sharply off Mando’s helmet.</p><p>“Grogu tells me that your name is Din Djarin,” Luke said.</p><p>The Mandalorian didn’t move.</p><p>“It’s a good name for someone like you,” Luke said. “It suits you, Din. Let’s start over, shall we? My name is Luke Skywalker. I am a Jedi knight. I think you’re a true piece of work and the definition of reckless, and I’m sorry to say that your son takes after you. Do you smile, Din? Do you hate stew?”</p><p>The words seemed to float away in the space between their sets of boots. Luke kept his posture as relaxed as he could.</p><p>“No one calls me that,” Mando said.</p><p>Luke blinked.</p><p>“Din?” he said.</p><p>“Don’t call me that,” Mando said.</p><p>“Oh, okay. Uh, Djarin?”</p><p>Was that helmet squinting at him? It felt like it was.</p><p>“No one calls me that, either,” Mando said.</p><p>“Well, I’ve got to call you something,” Luke pointed out.</p><p>“Do you?”</p><p>Wow.</p><p>“Yes, I do,” Luke said.</p><p>Mando huffed and then turned back to his ship.</p><p>“Fine, then,” he said. “But don’t go sharing it around.”</p><p>Don’t—</p><p>Hold on. Hold up. Wait.</p><p>Was that—was that <em>trust</em> Luke was sensing here?</p><p>“Are you trusting me?” he asked.</p><p>Mando started walking purposefully away.</p><p>But oho! He wasn’t getting off that easily.</p><p>“Do you trust me, Din?” Luke asked, hustling after.</p><p>“Stop.”</p><p>“Din Djarin? Do you trust me?”</p><p>“<em>Stop</em>.”</p><p>“Does it bother you? It doesn’t bother me. It’s a great name. Din. Din. Din. You should call me Luke.”</p><p>“Why are you like this?” Din snapped, whirling around so that Luke nearly crashed right into his helmet.</p><p>Luke could almost see the shape of eyes through the darkness.</p><p>“Because,” he said simply. “I’ve got to return the favor.”</p><p>“Do you?” Din asked. “Do you really?”</p><p>Mmmmm. Yes, actually. He did.</p><p>“I think we’re going to be friends, Din Djarin,” Luke said. “Let’s get started now.”</p><p>“Let’s not.”</p><p>“Wait, where are you going?”</p><p>“Away from you.”</p><p>Oh, no. Not after what Luke had just been through. This was it, bub. They were stuck now. So get back here; Luke had a thousand burning questions and the first was where in the whole of the galaxy Din had found this fantastic piece of junk that he called a ship.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
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        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29226144">wavelengths</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq">deniigiq</a>
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